


Mind The Gap

by metal_arm_metal_shield



Category: Phandom/The Fantastic Foursome (YouTube RPF)
Genre: AU, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-21
Updated: 2016-03-21
Packaged: 2018-05-28 05:43:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,897
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6316903
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/metal_arm_metal_shield/pseuds/metal_arm_metal_shield
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>There are many magical places on this fine earth.<br/>Would it be pretentious of me to call it "This glistening sapphire and emerald sphere"? Yes?<br/>Earth it is then.<br/>This...earth (definitely)is full of wonders; some as small as there being one more teabag in the caddy when you thought you had run out (God bless).<br/>My wonder however, is much much greater than tea(a high standard I know).<br/>The London Underground.<br/>That's where I saw him.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Mind The Gap

It smells like hurry, and stress. It sounds like a mother getting cross with her child for losing their day ticket, and a business man tutting for having to wait more than three nanoseconds at the gate. The air is thick and warm, even in the midst of winter, due to the waves of people emitting waves of heat;so deft in their movements you'd drown if you didn't know your way around the tunnels.

My carriage was cramped, but I wasn't nose to nose with anyone; a small blessing on the tube at 6pm on a Saturday. (Damn that person that thinks there's always room for one more in a brimming carriage. Damn you. I never wanted to know what being a tinned sardine felt like.) After offering my seat to a lady with two rustling handfuls of shopping bags, I stood with my hands locked around a smooth, sickly yellow pole, and my feet planted firmly on the rattling and uncomfortably sticky ground. I was due to get off in two stops at Holborn; my day had been long, and the time gone without coffee even longer. The train was nearing the next stop, and I saw the platform, with its colourful tiles, and the people waiting to board, scattered behind the yellow line on the floor, separated into frames by the train's windows, like the individual squares of pictures you see on old camera film. We screeched to a stop, and with a few impatient beeps the doors parted, allowing the commuters, but also a gust of refreshing metallic cold air, into the carriage. Not many got on, but many departed, and there was more than one seat free, so before the train lurched forward I slid into it. There was a boy beside me wearing headphones, and I could hear the heavy, thrumming bass of house music; the space between his ears not big enough to accommodate the noise, some was seeping out for those within a meter radius of him to hear.

I glanced down the aisle, my eyes scanning over those sitting and standing. I did not know many people in London, I had not lived here long. I came here, as many people do, because it had always been my dream to live in London and be a writer. But as most people with dreams so often do, I got a job, and my dreams faded with every passing day, and table I cleaned. It wasn't an unpleasant job, and it was one of those adorable tea rooms with bunting in the windows and fairy lights that stayed on all day, but I've always been restless; thinking I want something, getting it and being happy for a few months, and then growing uncomfortable, wanting more. It was something people were very undecided on; I was either "selfish" or "ambitious", as if my anxiety was something that I could help.

It's yet to come to that, though.

I am happy. I promise.

Anyway, I was looking down the aisle, in case I, hypothetically, saw someone I knew. (Slim chance, my phone book currently has 5 people from London in it... one of which is my manager, with a little tea cup emoji beside her name). I didn't, but people watching is my only pleasure that could possibly be deemed as intrusive. A few seats down from me was a man in a garish, bright orange coat, wearing aviators despite the fact he was inside, and well, underground. Maybe he was a vampire and the fluorescents were too much for him to bare. Who knows? The lady beside him had eyebrows like arrow heads, and lips so small and pursed it was as if she was perpetually sucking on a lemon segment. There were a few empty seats, and then a few that may as well had been empty, sat in which were those so obviously dull my eyes did not linger for more than a second. Lastly, my gaze settled upon a man with his nose buried deeply in a book. I could not see the title, as I did not look for it. It is seldom that a man distracts me from a book. He had the kind of face that you want to see smile, and his eyes fluttered across the pages before him, his eyebrows furrowed as he read. He had hair that reminded me of dark chocolate, the bitter kind that looks glossy when you melt it. The train had stopped, picked up no one, and started again, and still I looked, and looked, and looked, and looked, as he turned one, two, and then three pages of his book. He was too far away from me for me to give away specifics, and in my mind I still picture him, but not really, as I was distracted by the muffled club music beside me, my self loathing for having forgotten my glasses so that I couldn't behold him in his crisp and clear entirety, and the realisation that I had to stop looking at him in order to go home.

As I got off the train (mind the gap, please) I thought of all those people who fall in love, if only for a few minutes, one the tube. How many people had locked eyes and smiled? How many people had fallen back as the train took off, only to be caught by someone beautiful? How many scenarios had been thought up in the head of someone who admires another, before one of them inevitably has to disembark? My heart warmed at all the possibilities that these tunnels held, and just as quickly as I was besotted by the man, I had forgotten him almost completely, as one does.

The streets were more quiet than usual above ground, Christmas was well and truly over, the lights and sale posters in shop windows had been taken down, and the January blues were turning green as a promise to the budding flowers soon to pop up from beneath the soil that is so out of place in a city such as London. My boots made a feint clapping sound as they hit the floor, and I adjusted my coat and scarf so that they were wrapped more tightly around me. January may have been drawing to a close, but it still held the streets in a cold grip. I took a right turn, and dashed into the warm embrace of the coffee shop on the corner, an after work tradition; a chai latté to go, and I would nurse it in my cold hands as I walked.  
And I did just that. Call me predictable if you want. I find habitual acts extremely comforting.

The to-go cup tingled against my cold fingertips, and even when it was slightly too hot to be deemed comfortable I kept it there, sipping, then sighing, and then sipping again as I walked. My bag felt too light on my shoulder, due to the unnerving absence of a book. I had finished my previous read last night, and was eager to get my hands on a new novel. I read quickly, most books lasting me only about two days, but they were my guilty pleasure. Like a mistress who demands money to be spent on her lavish lifestyle, books demanded to be bought by me, and me being who I am, I would much rather be kept awake by a page turner, rather than a bed warmer. My favourite bookshop was just up the street. It was not one of those quirky ones with mismatching chairs that serves tea in dainty china cups (as much as I love them I find them disorganised, the books are seldom in alphabetical order, and I always leave a bit flustered, and empty handed), it was one of those pristine bookshops you see in nearly every city, whose logo was almost always either blue or green and white. The shelves were neat, and organised carefully, and the floor was spacious and airy, just as I preferred.

A kindly looking women held the door open for me, I smiled and thanked her, and shuddered in pleasure; the heating was on, and I was greeted by a warm gust of air, almost like a hug, as I walked deeper into the shop. There was a middle aged man behind the till, in a crisp black shirt, and a bald head that shined under the glaring lights, as if he had polished it before he had started his shift. I took my time in walking around, not passing a single shelf without having the decency of picking up one book and considering it. A book with a pastel cover caught my eye, and the novel was flimsy and light in my hands. It was lavender, and duck egg blue, and reminded me of the frosting that topped the cupcakes in the bakery a few streets down. It claimed to be "not a love story", but upon reading the back I deduced that it clearly was a love story, but one that had much potential. It was a story, as many books are, about love, but more interestingly about two women that fall into it, but face numerous obstacles along the way. It was a pragmatic three hundred pages, and was a reasonable ten pounds. Sold by this refreshing representation, I kept the book in my hands. I rounded the shop once more, looking idly at books, but not really looking at anything in particular.

 

I fished my wallet out of my bag and turned around just as the door of the shop opened to reveal two men. The first was tall, at least six foot three, with thick and lush light brown curls that sprung around his ears and cascaded down on to his forehead . There was a camera round his neck, one of those professional ones that only photographers and tourists with backpacks seem to have. He wrung his hands together as he entered, and seemed to lope into the store, his long, spindly legs carrying him in a smooth way across the carpet that was the same shade of green as the sign outside. I knew the second one. I recognised him instantly as the man I had been ogling at on the train earlier. He was closer now, and I was so conscious that he might catch me staring, yet I couldn't look away, and I felt my heart in my throat but in a good way for once. It was as if I couldn't imagine anything better, or worse, than him noticing me.

He looked around the shop, and caught my eye for just a second before I spun away and concealed myself behind a shelf.  
I heard the man with the camera speak, but I was too busy trying to look busy that I was too busy to hear what he said. I was in the history section, not completely out of my depth but feeling water lapping at the back of my thighs as my heart rate increased.  
"Dan?" the blonde man called, "where have you disappeared to?"  
"Classics," the other replied, sounding wistful.  
Dan. What a fantastic name. It was the name of a hero in a book, or an indie singer songwriter, it was a name that held infinite possibilities of greatness.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading! This is kind of a weird one, because Dan and Phil don't actually meet or get together... but I'm just testing the water with this idea, if people would like me to continue then I would love to!
> 
> *SELF PUBLICITY KLAXON*  
> I started a YouTube channel and honestly it would mean the world to me if you checked it out! 
> 
> https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCj7_UTUnkJbi55CTVPQ2nNA/feed


End file.
